Read Online Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] by Mother Road - Free Book Online Page B

was put in a sack, he paid Mr. White, thanked him and headed for the door. Before he reached it, Leona and the girls came into the store.
    “Mr. Yates,” JoBeth yelled and ran to him. “What did you buy?”
    “JoBeth!” Leona hissed. “That's not polite.”
    “I bought chewing gum,” Yates said, ignoring Leona. “Want some?” He opened the package and offered it to each of the girls, who took a stick, then offered it to Leona, who shook her head.
    He watched her chin lift and her eyes move away from him as he put the rest of the package in his shirt pocket. Today she wore a blue checked dress with puffed sleeves. It hugged her breasts and narrow waist. He didn't like the small-brimmed straw hat that sat at an angle on her head. It covered too much of her hair and offered practically no shade. He noticed a few freckles on her nose and that she had added a faint color to her lips, which were pressed so tightly together that the dimple in her cheek flirted with him.
    “Where'er you goin now, Mr. Yates?” JoBeth was again pulling on his hand while Ruth Ann looked out the door, embarrassed by her sister's questions.
    “I think I'll go back to the house and eat all the pralines that are left.” His twinkling eyes reluctantly left Leona to look down at the child. He saw that the smile had faded from her small face. “I'm kidding, honey. I'll not eat a bite of it until you get back.”
    “Promise?”
    “Promise. But don't tarry long. Your aunt promised me biscuits for dinner.”
    “Don't worry. You'll have them,” Leona gritted between clenched teeth.
    “See you back at the house, ladies.” Yates tipped his hat to Leona even though she had her face turned away.
    Yates left the store wondering why the smile had left Mr. White's small pinched features when he spoke about Leona, and why she had looked like she had rather be any place in the world but where she was.
    On the way down the street to his car he passed the hardware store, paused and wondered what she would say if he bought a tin oven to set on top of the kerosene burner she was using this morning. He stood looking into the window balancing the pros and cons.
    When she built a fire in the cookstove and the temperature outside was in the nineties, the heat in the kitchen would be almost unbearable. She would be sure to bake biscuits every day because he had expressed a liking for them. He didn't like to think about her sweating over a hot cookstove. On the other hand, she would resent his buying the oven, not wanting to be further obligated to him.
    What the hell.
Yates went into the hardware store. She was going to be mad as a wet hen anyway when Mr. White told her the grocery bill was paid. She might as well be mad about two things while she was at it.
    Yates was changing a tire, and Mr. Oliver was putting gas in a car when Leona and the girls returned from town. In order to avoid Yates, Leona drove past the house and parked the car beside the barn. She and the girls went into the house by the back door.
    “What's that?” The first thing Ruth Ann saw on entering the kitchen was the shiny portable oven sitting on the kerosene stove. She opened the door, peered inside, then answered her own question. “It's an oven, Aunt Lee.”
    Leona, taking off her hat, didn't answer. She was hammering down the anger that had bubbled up because she knew what it was and who had put it there.
    “Where'd it come from?” JoBeth opened the door to the oven and closed it with a bang.
    “Stop! You'll break it,” Ruth Ann said irritably. “Where'd it come from?” She repeated her sister's question.
    “Maybe the tooth fairy left it?”
    Leona's sarcasm didn't register with the girls. She was already so mad she could chew nails over the way Mr. White, with a sly smile, told her that Andy's
cousin
had left money on account at the store and how pleased she must be to have a man there to look after
her
while Andy was gone.
    “Maybe Daddy came home!” JoBeth ran toward the